Aibu to think Dunelm are unreasonable?

[LadyGodHelpUs]

On Saturday I bought £217 worth of stuff from Dunelm. I paid £40 using a gift card given to me as a Christmas present. The rest I paid by card.

Today I returned £97 worth of things. They insisted that £40 had to go back on the gift card.

I wasn’t made aware of this or I would have carried out separate transactions. I didn’t sign anything and it didn’t mention this on the back of the receipt where it said refunds would be no problem within the set time period.

AIBU that this is unfair practice?

snort at ‘I wouldn’t accept it’. what would you do exactly, to force them to give you what you want? stamp your feet?

I think that's standard practice. Annoying, but normal

I understand why this is a policy but it seems they could have made an exception in the OPs case, as she was spending so much. There should be some flexibility?

Well their policy says they refund to the original payment method, so their policy is not to issue credit notes for non-faulty returns, they refund you.

Therefore there is no reason they should issue a gift card as the refund. OP has spent much more than the original gift card and kept those goods.

If I were in this situation I would tell them I’d return everything as suggested by a PP. Then I wouldn’t even buy the rug back - I’d get £40 worth of stuff and not a penny more, then I’d never go in there again!

Yep! If you ever want/need to return the item, they’ll put the value on a new gift card.

I worked in Retail management in a few different companies across 6 years. In most cases you can choose on the till whether you’ll give the amount back via gift card or a normal return. Sounds like the store didn’t want the return value being deducted from their daily takings (that’s how it works), so they fobbed you off with a gift card as it looks like a customer has purchased a £40 gift card.

There’s loads of different ways to manipulate the system to making daily takings look better but fucking hell, that’s absolutely awful service. Even though you did a return, due to what you kept you basically spent the giftcard anyway so they should have given you you’re money back. I’d email customer services with the details so you can get a proper return given

I would do what PP suggested. Return the lot - get £200 cash and £40 gift card - then rebuy the things you actually want to keep using the gift card and some of the cash.

But unfortunately OP can’t do this due to it being a massive hassle for her.

It's a clear one rule for all regardless of spend to stop them having to check each time that laundering isn't happening.

What a pp suggested: return everything and buy back the items you wanted on the gift card.

But even returning the items she still spent more than twice the amount of the giftcard. They are just wanting to make sure she spends more money in there than she would have intended to.

Err, she has a receipt. Some really poor reading comprehension on display on this thread.

It's a simple policy which both prevents money laundering and makes sure that the money is spent in the store. If they didn't do it they'd have people spending their entire gift card and then getting it refunded to their card for the cash. Blame all the CFs who've done that in the past and caused them to implement the policy, stupid though it is.

If you want to "win" just return the entire order for a refund and then buy back the stuff you know you want.

Take more back and then rebuy it on the gift card.

There’s no need to “snort.” Do you just always accept the first thing someone offers you? If you make a reasoned argument there is only so long they’ll want to have you standing there. I think if I got the manager to come over it’s highly unlikely I wouldn’t get the money back.

The people that are saying this is standard practice are totally wrong.

If I buy £200 worth, £160 debit card and £40 giftcard.
I then return £100 worth. I’ve still spent £60 of my own money along with the £40 giftcard. So there’s no need to return the amount on the giftcard when I’ve technically used the amount on what I’ve kept.

They did a very very cheeky thing

YABU, this normal practice in retail to avoid fraud, Dunelm are doing no different to other large retailers.

What does it matter? You're getting the money back anyway.

Yep, I'd do this. Return something worth £40 that you want and pay for it with the gift card.

“Money” that she has to spend in Dunelm???

If they didn't do it they'd have people spending their entire gift card and then getting it refunded to their card for the cash.

@theGooHasGone Well that’s just not true at all is it? The OP didn’t spend £200 on a giftcard then wanted to return the full value and have it refunded straight to her. She technically spent the giftcard on the item that she kept so why would they not refund her?

I think this is normal, had similar when returning things to Debenhams

@Face2facet she said she had to ask for the receipt (I assume from whoever bought it for her). She didn't have a receipt originally.

Are you sure there's nothing in the small print or terms and conditions?

I have the solution. Gift card was £40, OP spent £217. £97 came back. £40 gift card was 18.43% of the total spend. So £97 return, so 18.43% equates to £17.88 on a gift card and £79.12 in cash.

If the store want to be generous, I'd say this is the best they should do.

I could understand if you'd spent £40 and then wanted it back as loads of people try to convert gift cards to cash BUT you spent over a hundred more of your own money on top of the gift total.

I would expect the manager to override that rule, in this case.

How is this avoiding fraud? You’d be pretty stupid to launder money by buying a £40 gift card, spending that and £160 of your own money, and then trying to get £100 of money refunded. How would that benefit you??